Ordinary
by Jukebox Mill
Summary: In Ordon, heroes are bred and raised to live ordinary lives. In Castle Town, there are no heroes and lives are at stake. [UPDATE: CHAPTER 3] Panic grips the village after a midnight encounter.
1. The Big Catch

_**Ordinary**_

_**I.**_

Autumn came suddenly, and with music — birdsong in the morning, wood chimes in the evening, and the carrying bellow of an open fire deep into the night. Everywhere was melody, and everyone was dancing, from the fidgety two-step of children dressing at the door, to the bounding, prancing jig of lovers in the barley, their long shadows keeping step a ways behind. Nature sang, even as it withered and drowsed and the frost crept closer day by day, and for a time the whole world was aglow in the gold and chestnut hue of happy memories. These were the days of plenty in the land of Hyrule, when wagons on the road teemed with vegetables and trout were fat and idle in the river, and in the evening, when the great orange harvest moon cast its light over the farthest corners of the world, small legends came quietly to life and disappeared again into the darkness.

There were pumpkins everywhere in the village of Ordon — underfoot, typically — dropped or misplaced or else still growing by the way, big as boulders. Marksmen loved them. It was not uncommon to see them mounted on sticks or dangling from high branches, riddled with arrows or burst in half by a slingshot, to the point that the clearing at the mouth of the village had become a sort of shooting gallery where young people gathered to brag and laugh and dare all the day long. Loam, though a dab hand with a bow when he needed to be, considered this a terrible waste of good food. A student of the forest, he knew from the signs that the coming winter would be as difficult as the harvest season had been easy. With carelessness, the consequences.

Loam was remarkable, in that people made remarks about him often. He was young and strong and capable, but thoughtful and quiet also, which was unusual in those parts. Some villagers thought him timid or closed-off, but that wasn't really true. Others more generously agreed he simply lacked the preening cocksureness of the other young men of Ordon, which was absolutely true. The likes of Bartl and Ado swaggered and catcalled their way through a day's work at the ranch with their friends and drank and smoked like brigands in the night, while Loam gardened or went fishing or hawking on his own in the daytime, and spent his evenings tending to his mother or reading books by candlelight.

He had fair, clean skin, and was taller than most, with a thatch of auburn hair that framed his serious face attractively, but served a lesser purpose in the way it concealed his seashell-shaped ears — his father had been Hylian, they told him, and while that was nothing to be ashamed of, it was nothing to crow about either. His most distinguishing feature, however, were the wire-frame glasses perched upon the bridge of his nose. Loam was the only young person in the village who needed them, and the obvious fact that they made him look distinguished and wise was not enough to deter the bullies growing up.

Not that they bothered him much. Nothing bothered Loam, not really — wasted pumpkins aside.

One morning, when the season had peaked and even the noonday sun cast long shadows over the land, he stepped into a canoe moored to the pier behind the grocer's mart and set about threading sinkers and lures to fishing poles for Colin, the village protector. Colin had laid down a series of tasks to each of the young men as a means of raising them up to the level of what he called 'heroes' — skilled workers, defenders, craftsmen, and eventually husbands, ('the noblest duty of all,' to hear him tell it). Ordon was their inheritance, and he would train them to steward it well. Loam needed no instruction when it came to fishing, but he set about his work without complaint, like always, lost in thought even as his deft hands performed the task immaculately.

'Loam?' came a tremulous voice from above him.

He looked up and shielded his eyes against the sun's first rays. It was Colin's grandson, Wren, standing at the pier's end and clutching one of its wooden posts tightly in one hand. Wren was terrified of water (and fire, and dogs, and knives, and the dark), and didn't trust himself to stand too close to it.

'Hi, Wren,' said Loam, smiling warmly at him. 'You're up early today.'

'I knew you'd be out here,' he explained. 'Wanted to see if you needed any he-help.'

The truth was etched all over his small, doughy face: he wanted no such thing. His father must have put him up to it, a lesson in manliness before its time. Loam's expression stayed the same, easy and kind and brimming with encouragement.

'Help me fish?' he said lightly. 'I'd like that very much. Here —' (he passed a rod over the water and into Wren's reluctant free hand) '— hold onto this and climb in. You can sit between my knees.'

It was a credit to the boy that he was able to move at all. He looked pale and wan, and clung to Loam like a barnacle as soon as he was within arm's reach. Loam took him gently and placed him firmly at the bow of the tiny boat, careful to rock it as little as possible.

'You okay?' he whispered to the shaking figure in his lap.

A muffled sniff and a nod of Wren's small blonde head was his answer.

'All right, then. Let's push off.'

He pressed the blade of his oar to the pier and they set out across the pond in silence, cutting a channel through the low, silvery morning mist. The rock walls that framed the village came together at a bottleneck at the far end of the water, and Loam steered them through it expertly, whistling the first few notes of a lullaby all the while. The narrow canyon reopened into a wide circle, the farthermost part of the pond, where a pillar of mossy stone stood like a natural shrine in the very middle. Here, where it was deepest, the canoe drifted to a halt, though Wren, who had shut his eyes tightly from the moment he sat down, was not aware of this.

'Would you like to cast?' Loam asked him.

'I can't,' mumbled the boy.

'Sure you can. I see you fishing for greengills in Faron Spring all the time.'

'This is deeper than Faron Spring.'

'Well then, you'll have to cast wider. Take the rod, now.'

He placed it into Wren's hands and closed his own hands over them. The trembling had become almost violent, but Loam made no comment.

'The lure is coated with bee larva, see?' he whispered, jiggling it meaningfully. 'That's the secret. Fish go mad for it, just you watch. Now. When you cast, swish it out to the starboard side and then pitch it over your shoulder, hard as you can. Got all that?'

'Um, I think,' said Wren. He had opened his eyes just a fraction.

'Okay. One — two — _three!'_

In one fluid motion, Loam directed the boy's hands in precisely the way he had described, and the lure sailed twenty feet away from them, the line whizzing eagerly in its wake before it hit the water with a distant and satisfying plop.

'Nice one!' he chuckled.

A small squawk of delight escaped Wren's lips, very much in spite of himself. He quickly came to his senses, and shrank back into Loam's loose embrace. They sat there in silence for several minutes, waiting for a bite, watching the golden band of morning sun inch down the rock face toward the water's surface.

'How are things at home?' asked Loam.

''Kay,' the boy shrugged. 'Bartl came over for supper last night. I think he likes Raya.'

'What makes you say that?'

''Cuz he tried to kiss her when everyone went to bed.' He gave Loam an abashed look over his shoulder. 'Um, I was watching from the window upstairs.'

Loam just winked at him. 'And how did she feel about that?' he wondered delicately.

'Not so good, I don't think,' said Wren. A reluctant smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. 'She, um. She said he had onion breath, and that his beard made him look like a, like a goat. Um.'

He studied Loam's face for a moment, to discern whether this was something they could share a laugh over. It was. Their quiet giggling was a small sound in the hushed and chilly morning, but it seemed to hasten the sun's passage somehow, warming them.

'Poor Bartl,' Loam sighed good-naturedly.

Wren looked puzzled and annoyed all of a sudden. 'Why are you so nice to him? He's so mean to you.'

'Do you think he'd be nicer if I were mean as well?'

'I — guess not.' His expression softened, and he reflected for a moment, saying nothing else on the matter. 'You've got sword training with Grandpa this afternoon,' he added at length.

'Yes, I do.'

'You'll definitely win the Ordon Sword this month. You're way better than those other guys.'

'Well, thank you, Wren. It's all just a matter of practice.'

'What will you do with it?' the boy wondered.

'With the sword? Don't really know. I'll probably practice with it out in the woods like I do with my regular sword, until it's time to give it — whoa!'

The line became suddenly taut and the rod arched over in their shared grasp. Wren let out a cry, not knowing what to do, remembering in a rush where he was and what they were there for.

'Take the reel,' Loam instructed him. 'Wind hard, now, good and hard.'

He focused his attention keeping the canoe steady, grinning happily as the boy wrestled with their catch, closing the gap between themselves and the thrashing, splashing thing ahead of them.

'Almost there!'

Wren puffed out his cheeks comically, intent on his mission. The fact that water was sloshing and leaping on either side of him seemed to be of no importance at all anymore. All that mattered was this test of strength, boy against fish, the constant cranking of the reel in his little fist no matter how fierce the resistance, until at last it hung there, right in front of his eyes: an actual Ordon catfish, brown and slimy and writhing.

'You've done it!' cheered Loam. 'Wren, you've done it! Must be eight pounds at least, look at it!'

He reached over gingerly to unhook its mouth, letting it drop into the cloth bag he had brought along. A ringing silence filled their ears as the ripples dwindled back down to stillness, in which Wren slowly turned around to look Loam full in the face. His own face was transfigured; he looked euphoric, aglow in the bright sunshine, his watery blue eyes crowded in behind grinning red cheeks.

'I did it,' he said softly.

Loam tousled the boy's hair, gazing fondly down at him over his glasses. 'You did. You were amazing,' he said sincerely. 'I mean it. Your Dad'll be so proud. I sure am.'

It happened in an instant, then. Without saying a word, Wren scrambled to his feet and threw his arms around Loam's neck, taking him completely by surprise.

'Wren — what're you — _watch out_!'

But it was too late. The boat bucked twice in either direction before capsizing completely, and everything after that was ice cold and suffocating.


	2. Love and Grudges

_**II.**_

News travelled fast in Ordon.

Young Wren had fallen into the pond, the villagers said, ('_where it was deepest!'_), and had emerged shivering head-to-toe, but only from the cold. Far from seeming frightened or disturbed, he was rather beside himself with excitement, and raved endlessly through chattering teeth about what an adventure it had been to hold fast to Loam's shoulders in the churning water as he righted the canoe and paddled them back to safety at once.

The cause for this calamity? Nothing less than the catching of his very first fish — which had, most unfortunately, made its escape in the confusion. If only they could have seen it, though! It was at least twenty pounds, maybe even twenty-five…

Colin was waiting for them at the pier along with Wren's parents, who gathered him out of Loam's hands and raced home before he could catch a chill. Loam took Colin's outstretched hand in his own with gratitude, and lay down, sopping and panting, in the warm grass.

'You okay?' asked the old man.

'Yeah, fine.' Loam waved a limp, dismissive hand at him. 'He caught a fish. Got overexcited.'

He felt the ground shift slightly as Colin sat down beside him, chuckling in his gravelly way.

'You're a wonder, Loam,' he marvelled. 'You've done an important thing for that grandson of mine today.'

'It's just fishing.'

Colin became faraway in thought for a moment, as he so often did. 'Nothing is just ever just anything,' he murmured, as much to himself as to Loam. 'Not when you're a hero.'

_There he goes again_, thought Loam wryly. 'I'm no hero, Colin,' he insisted.

Colin gave him a lopsided grin. 'That's what they all say. But Wren won't hear a bar of it. That boy would follow you to the Void and back, let me tell you.'

Loam sat up and regarded him. Colin had been a cowardly boy himself, he always reminded them, timid and retiring, preferring to weave baskets and pick strawberries for his mother over raiding the woods and roughhousing with friends. He would talk himself down, shy away from danger, and felt like a disappointment to everyone who cared about him.

'_Something changed all that_,' he would go on to say in grave tones, '_something major_.'

They never did discover what — the most Colin would reveal was the presence of a hero in his life, an example, a role model, had caused him to put away his fears and take on the mantle of true manhood. Most of the children in the village believed it had been his father. For some reason, Loam had always suspected otherwise.

Whatever the cause, there was little trace of that boy in him now. He had stringy grey hair flecked with the last of the blonde that had once gleamed in the sun like a silk sheet, and his face was deeply lined and lumpy with age. His doleful blue eyes had dulled over time, but were full of kindness. Loam looked up to Colin in quite the same way Wren looked up to Loam. As the only young man in the village without a father, it was a natural fit, though there was never any question of favouritism on Colin's part, which was exactly how Loam liked it.

'I'd better dry out,' he said at length. 'See you at practice?'

'Of course,' said Colin, clapping him on the shoulder wetly. 'Might sit here a little longer m'self. Won't be seeing much of the sun in a couple weeks.'

'That's true,' Loam agreed.

He didn't say anything else, merely rose to a stand and left the old man to his memories.

...

It was on the way to practice that Loam crossed paths with Raya, Wren's older sister. She was raking leaves in the yard while her mother tended to the vegetable patch on her hands and knees, and spotted him approaching from afar.

'Hi, Loam!' she called.

He smiled at her and came near, giving her mother a small wave on the approach.

'Hi, Raya. Having a good day?'

'Okay, I guess,' she shrugged, looking away and smiling. Raya often looked away and smiled when Loam was around. 'My brother hasn't stopped telling people about that whole fish thing this morning. Did it really weigh twenty pounds?'

'It was probably closer to nineteen,' he replied with a ghost of a wink.

She giggled, and looked perfectly lovely. A year younger than Loam, Raya was her father's pride and joy, with her sandy hair that fell in ringlets over sapphire blue eyes, her willowy figure and her strawberries-and-cream complexion. She was very popular with boys, and Loam liked her very much, though he was yet to make any plans to that end.

'Off to sword practice, huh?'

'That's right. Would you like to come watch?'

'Sure!' she exclaimed, clearly delighted.

She set her rake down, resting it against a tree, and made to leave without asking her mother's permission.

'Where are you going, Raya?' came the expected call before they had even cleared the picket fence.

'I'm going with Loam to Grandpa's training!' Raya called back over her shoulder, rolling her eyes in an affected way at Loam, who grinned.

'Oh,' said her mother. 'With Loam. Well. Carry on, then.'

She returned to her gardening with a small, strange smile.

Loam and Raya made idle conversation on their short journey to the Ranch, walking side-by-side across the babbling brook that fed the pond and further up the dirt trail, dead leaves rustling noisily with every footfall.

'I found four Rupees while I was raking the yard,' she informed him. 'See?'

She held out a small handful of glittering green gemstones. Loam smiled approvingly.

'Nice. Amazing how many of those things you can find just in the long grass, isn't it? Who even leaves them there?'

'My Dad, probably,' Raya replied. 'There's a hole in his trouser pocket. I'd mend it, but…well, y'know…'

She slipped the Rupees back into her own pocket meaningfully, a sly smile spreading over her pretty face. They shared a quiet laugh, and anyone observing might have seen the space between them narrow just a little, and quite unconsciously.

As it happened, someone was observing. Ilia, the village spinster and the oldest person in Ordon, watched them from the deep shade of Colin's porch with her green eyes, which were piercing and intelligent even as the ravages of age had taken their toll on the rest of her face. She did not smile to see the first buds of young love begin to bloom in the street. Rather, her pinched features became even harder and more solemn than they almost always were, and her thoughts were of the past, and of loss, and of never knowing.

'Ilia was watching us just before,' Raya remarked under her breath as they passed through the high gate and up the slope to where the fields were.

'Mm,' said Loam mildly. 'I see a lot more of her since she moved out of the treehouse.'

The subject of the treehouse at the edge of the forest was a popular one in Ordon. Ilia had lived there for nearly fifty years, but was forced to move in with Colin and his wife when her frail body was no longer up to climbing ladders. She was yet to bequeath it to anyone, and many a villager worked tirelessly to stay on her good side ahead of the release of her last will and testament.

'She's kind of weird, don't you think?' Raya offered uncomfortably. 'Like, a real wet blanket.'

Loam stayed silent. He knew the gossip, but made a point of not participating.

'She's had a hard life,' was all he said. 'Hard and lonely.'

The shallow canyon opened up into the wide, brown-and-gold expanse of Ordon Ranch. The foothills beyond the open plain looked smoky and indistinct in the mid-afternoon sunshine, and the smell on the air — of earth and straw and animal — was pungent, but wonderful. In the middle of the paddock was Colin, lolling against what looked like a totem pole with a dozen arms outstretched in all directions, scuffed and chipped from years of being beaten up by boys with wooden swords. Nearby, four much younger men chewed hayseed and made dirty jokes in the grass, waiting for Loam to arrive. Among them was Bartl, who straightened up like a hound having caught a scent the moment he spotted Raya with him. The others — Ado, Nael and Thatch — began to mutter.

'Ah, Loam!' Colin announced. 'Good, good, we were starting to worry. And Raya! Come to see my heroes at work, eh?'

'Oh, yes, grandfather,' she retorted airily, and mimed swooning to his and Loam's amusement.

'Well, pull up a seat, my girl, pull up a seat. Now, gentlemen…'

The five young men gathered around him in a broken semicircle, Bartl casting beady sidelong glances all the while.

'Ready for a pounding, Loamly?' he hissed out of the corner of his mouth.

Loam's smile was placid and benign. 'As you say, Bartl,' he replied, soft as ever.

Colin distributed the battered wooden katanas he had been training with since before Loam's mother was a girl. He set them to drills, partnering himself to Ado and making Loam and Nael a pair. For a while the only sound under the deep blue sky was the _clack-clack-clack_ of wood striking wood, which unsettled the goats in the barn across the way. Occasionally, Nael would break routine and strike Loam on the shoulder, and at one point Bartl succeeded in convincing his partner, Thatch, to stretch out a leg and and trip him into falling. In both instances, Loam was unflappable, proceeding forth as before without a word of complaint.

'Stop there,' instructed Colin after an hour.

Sweat glistened on all their brows, but was quickly chilled by a gentle northern breeze to herald the coming of evening.

'Good hustle, men,' he said bracingly, towelling off his neck. 'Nael, your footwork has come a long way, that's excellent. Thatch, I don't know _what_ you thought you were doing with your foot. Bartl, great defensive manoeuvres — I'm putting you in the running for the Ordon Sword this month.'

'_Yesss!'_ Bartl hollered over the lazy, scattershot applause that accompanied this honour.

He swaggered over to Colin, puffed up with pride and casting obvious looks over at Raya.

'Loam, you get out here, too,' added Colin.

Bartl's smug expression froze. The other boys did not applaud, though their interest became sharper than any sword, and a palpable sense of anticipation hung as heavy in the air as the lilac wafting in from the forest. Raya leaned forward to hug her knees beneath her chin.

Loam stood opposite Bartl, looking neither pleased nor displeased, as Colin offered them each a wooden helmet. Bartl took his with a brisk, sullen swipe and fastened it over his feathery black hair, but Loam declined, gesturing at his glasses ruefully, which caused the other boys to snicker. This seemed to hearten Bartl slightly, and his lip curled into a familiar sneer once more.

'You know the rules, my Knights of Ordona,' declared Colin, only half-jokingly. 'Three direct hits, and the Sword is yours. Begin!'

Bartl fell at once into a fighter's stance — legs apart, shoulders hunched, turning the sword in impressive circles with one hand — but Loam remained as he was, standing tall with the hilt in both hands and his shoulders squared. He regarded Bartl dispassionately, taking in the too-small eyes, the overly wide mouth, and of course, the wispy tuft of beard that recalled a goat, as Wren had described. He was half a head shorter than Loam, and at least five times as nasty.

In a flash, the action began. Bartl lunged and the blades met with a ringing crack, but what thrilled the crowd did not thrill Loam. To him, swordplay was like math: the right steps in the right order to produce the right result. Step, step, lunge, parry, block, step, pivot, block, _lunge—_

'A hit!' cried Colin, as Bartl clutched his upper arm, snarling. 'One to Loam.'

Raya clapped her hands. The second round began without preamble, and it was all Loam could do to keep himself from yawning. Bartl's highly emotional attacks were sloppy, costing him strength and position, and his feints were like children's pantomime in their obviousness. A hollow _conk_ sound attended the sudden blow to the crown of Bartl's helmet, and for a moment he stood dazed and blinking.

'Two to Loam!' Colin trumpeted. His blue eyes were twinkling.

Bartl's swarthy face burned an ugly red, and Loam could see a nerve jumping in his jaw. He sighed through his nose, and gave his opponent an entreating look.

'Listen, Bartl,' he said quietly. 'If you want the Sword, you can have it. We don't have to play to three.'

This was met with a humourless bark of laughter.

'Oh, yeah, right,' seethed Bartl. 'I know your game, Loamer. You just don't wanna get humiliated in front of Raya.'

_I don't want to humiliate YOU in front of Raya,_ Loam thought sadly, and he meant it.

'Come on now, boys,' Colin prodded. 'Show us what we came to see!'

Bartl charged for the third time — literally charged, hurtling headlong at Loam in an effort to ram him, yelling and cursing in a guttural way, so that for a second Loam was actually nonplussed. However, at the last moment, he performed a graceful sidestep, causing Bartl to overbalance and stumble with a cry. As a final insult, Loam spanked him smartly on the hindquarters with the flat of his blade as he went down, crashing face-first into the dirt.

Raucous laughter rent the air. The other young men, Raya — even Colin had to cover his mouth. Loam, meanwhile, felt a leaden sensation of guilt in his chest from the moment he had done it. Even as Colin pressed the Ordon Sword — the only real melee weapon in the village, an heirloom and a treasure — into his hand, he felt no satisfaction at seeing Bartl struggle to his feet and dust himself down furiously.

The gathering dispersed, but Loam lingered a moment, drawing near to his foe to offer a conciliatory word, even an apology. He received in reply a gob of spit at his feet and a look of genuine hatred before Bartl turned tail and stalked away on his own.


	3. Two Pumpkins

_**III.**_

It began with the crack of a twig.

Loam's eyes opened. They didn't burst open, and neither did they blink groggily. They simply opened, and for a minute he stared up at the dark sloped ceiling of his bedroom in the loft, his long ears twitching against the noises in the night.

There were whispers coming from the yard, malicious whispers. He could hear the intent behind them, even if he couldn't quite make out the words. Hissed instructions, stifled laughs…it could only be Bartl and Ado, come to exact revenge for the afternoon's indignity. He sighed through his nose. Whatever they had planned would undoubtedly involve manure in some way — manure in his letterbox, manure on the doorstep, manure smeared over the clothes on the washing line. For some reason, Bartl seemed to think that exposure to manure would cause his victims unimaginable shame and suffering. Loam found it tiresome, mostly for the way it upset his mother. Tonight, he decided, he was not going to stand for it.

Silent as a shadow, he took his glasses from the nightstand and slipped them on, vanishing from under the covers and reappearing at the window a moment later. The waxing moon was at its highest point in the clear night sky, and the world below shone iridescent white-blue in its light, a colourless imitation of noonday in which the shadows were the black of bottled ink.

They were easy to see, the pair of them, crouching down in the vegetable patch with crude masks over their faces, perhaps thinking they could get away unrecognised in a village with fewer than half a dozen teenaged boys. Loam made a distasteful sound in his throat. They had sawed the top off his mother's prized pumpkin, scooped out the innards, and were replacing them with, yes — manure.

He glowered at them for a moment, calculating.

There was nothing else for it. He crossed the bedroom, past the Ordon Sword, which was wrapped in furs and leathers in repose against the wall, and opened the top drawer of his dresser. Inside, the slingshot he hadn't touched for several years lay dormant, and a handful of Deku seeds rolled around it, glinting dully. He seized it all and returned to his vantage point, loading the elastic with the biggest of the seeds and pulling it taut, the wooden prongs held fast in the other hand. Loam kept both eyes open when he aimed, even with a bow, and his target now was the sweet spot on the pumpkin being vandalised by his enemies. If hit just so, it would explode and shower them with dung. The very thought of it sent a ripple of satisfaction over the the usually peaceful waters of his deeper nature.

But in that moment, a fraction of a second before he let go, something gave him pause. His ears twitched once, then twice, the subtle points of them flexing almost imperceptibly underneath his hair. He lowered the slingshot and listened.

Beyond the conspiratorial muttering of Bartl and Ado, he could hear the stream chuckling in its pleasant way, and, farther along, the muted groans and sloshes of the water wheel by the mill.

But that was it. There were no other sounds.

No cricket song, no croaking toads, no owls hooting. Not even the rustle of dead leaves in the wind. It was an otherworldly quiet, the likes of which Loam had never heard. It was not natural, and it was not insignificant. A creeping sense of dread had barely begun to descend down his spine, when the loudest scream in the history of Ordon split the night like a trumpet blast.

'Raya,' he whispered automatically.

It happened in a series of still images, then, like snaps from a pictograph box: the whoosh of his nightshirt as he turned on a pivot, the snatching of the Ordon Sword from its resting place, the flight down the stairs and the bursting through the door, past Bartl and Ado (who stood petrified with helpings of dung and pumpkin guts in either hand), and the hurtling pell-mell down the lane to where the screaming rang out shriller and more terrified than when it started.

He stopped dead in his tracks and tried to process what he was seeing.

Raya was being dragged through the dirt by her ankle, the white shift she had worn to bed bunched up in folds over her face, exposing her young body completely to the night air. Her attacker was nothing less than an actual monster, nine feet tall at a reckoning: a dog who walked like a man, clad in chains and mismatched plate mail. Its face was dull and sour-looking, canine teeth protruding out from behind its bottom lip, red eyes glowing like embers in the shadow of its prominent brow. Raya's shrieking was of no apparent consequence to it, and neither were the windows that lit up in every home, or the doors that flew open, or the wails and curses of the villagers as they looked on in horror and despair. Grunting absently, it lumbered on toward the north pass with its prize in tow.

Thought and reason fled Loam's mind. He cast off the sheath from the Ordon Sword and broke into a sprint with a low growl in his throat that crested into a ferocious war cry. In two long strides, he scaled a rocky outcrop by the way and propelled himself into a leap from the peak, brandishing the blade over his shoulder in both hands. In a single stroke the beast's massive head was parted from its shoulders, sailing in a gory arc to the opposite side of the path where it landed in a patch of bramble, a gruesome and disfigured parody of a pumpkin. Gouts of hot black blood came spurting out from the stump of its neck, soaking Loam's bedclothes as he landed heavily on his knees, while the massive body tottered from side-to-side for a moment in time, still grasping Raya in its loose fist. At last, its legs buckled, and the great broad bulk of it collapsed onto its front with an almighty crash.

Loam tossed his weapon carelessly to one side and fell upon Raya, pulling her tangled nightgown down by the hem to cover her nakedness before the whole village could see. She had become hysterical with panic throughout the ordeal, and lashed out at him with her fingernails, sobbing and flailing in the grass. Loam seized both her wrists and leaned in very close.

'Shh, shh,' he breathed. 'Raya. Raya, it's me. It's Loam. Raya, it's okay — look at me.'

Raya became very rigid, her pretty face a mask of distress as she sucked rapid, shallow breaths in through tightly clenched teeth. When she chanced to open one eye, Loam felt her go limp in his clutches, and it was then that she began to cry.

'It's over,' he assured her quietly, and they embraced.

At once, they were surrounded. Raya's father, Daro, elbowed Loam out of the way and cradled his daughter fiercely, while her mother stood at a distance with Wren in her arms, their anguished faces glistening with tears. Oil lanterns were held high over the body of the creature on all sides, and the clamour of oaths and prayers and swearing that accompanied the scene was like the buzzing of hornets to Loam, who felt weak and dizzy as the adrenaline began to subside and his thinking began to catch up to his actions.

'_Moblins!' _roared Colin, appearing in their midst. He looked drawn and ancient in the pale moonlight. 'In Ordon! Gods and goddesses, not since…'

'What the heck's a moblin?' interrupted Tobas, the village grocer. 'I know bulblins and I know bokoblins, but I ain't ever seen anything like this, I mean, look at the _size—_'

'What did it want with Raya?' a fretful woman's voice demanded from further along, as other women sobbed and hugged their children. 'You don't think…?'

'Ask Loam,' said a quiet voice unexpectedly.

The talk died down, and all eyes turned to Bartl, who stood a little apart from the crowd, fresh muck still on his hands. He looked calm, if slightly ill, and his eyes glittered strangely in the firelight.

'Loam killed it,' he continued. 'Took its head right off. I saw the whole thing. He'll tell you.'

The two young men exchanged a serious look, and the face that only a few hours ago had been twisted into a mask of hostility now regarded Loam with an expression of something like awe. Colin made a beeline through the crowd in haste and crouched down to interrogate, his knobbed hand clamped over Loam's shoulder like a vice.

'Loam?' he said hoarsely. 'What happened? Can you speak, son?'

Slowly, Loam turned his head to look his mentor full in the face. His ears were ringing, the lashings of blood up his arms were a stench in his nostrils, and his sweat-soaked nightshirt clung to his body and chilled him in the freezing air, but when he spoke, he spoke clearly and with composure.

'It was taking Raya,' he explained. 'Heading for the woods, it looked like. Must've broken through the gate.'

'You killed it?' whispered Colin avidly. 'With the Sword?'

Loam nodded once, unsmiling. He imagined the sensation of the blade hacking through flesh and bone, the brief resistance he felt in the killing swing before it opened up to thin air, and the blood, _the blood, _come gushing forth in a black fountain. A dull lurch of revulsion registered in the pit of his stomach, but the memory was not entirely unpleasant for all that.

'Good boy,' said Colin. He raised his voice as he stood tall. 'Good, brave man!'

There was applause and even cheering from the villagers. Loam's mother, Wylla, swept into circle of flickering light and embraced her son's head to her chest, whispering senseless words into his thick hair that spoke of great fear and even greater pride.

'Yes, well,' said a deep voice at the head of the assembly. Those gathered turned in deference to Mayor Thom, whose wide frame set the pinstripes on his pyjamas at odd angles. 'It's all well and good Loam saving Raya, Colin, but what does this mean for Ordon?'

He gave the felled body an experimental kick in the ribs with his bare foot.

'There's not been a monster raid in these parts since before most of us here were even born. If the forest isn't safe —'

'—We'll _make _it safe!' said Colin firmly, planting a fist in his palm. There was a kind of mania to the way his eyes shone, an overeagerness, as though he had been pining for a night like this for decades. 'Monsters are like birds, moving up and down the land with the seasons. We know this. If they want to make a home in Ordon, we'll give 'em plenty of reason to reconsider. We'll fortify the gate, organise a night's watch, send hunting parties —'

'_Hunting parties?' _Daro interrupted loudly. There was derision in his voice, even when addressing his own father; his swarthy, stubbly face was livid with fear and anger. 'And what do you propose we hunt _with?_ That sword of yours is the only meaningful defence this village has. If there are more of these things coming down from Faron, bows and arrows won't be of any use — unless you intend for us to fight them back with shovels and pitchforks?'

An angry murmur of agreement rolled through the crowd. Colin looked stung.

'Daro's right, Colin,' said the mayor. 'If we're going to see this menace off, we need to be better armed.'

'How're we gonna manage that?' wondered Tobas. 'Ain't been a smith in these parts for centuries. Nobody here knows how to work a hammer and anvil.'

'No,' Thom replied, after a moment's deliberation. 'But in Castle Town they do.'


End file.
